Metro Transit Employees Accused of Distributing Pain Pills on the Job

Six Metro Transit employees have been disciplined for their roles in handing out prescription pain medication while on the job.

Metro Transit officials say two employees, including a supervisor, handed out the pain pills to at least one employee over the course of several months.

The pain pills were handed out at the Light Rail Transit Maintenance Facility in Minneapolis. The employee, who no longer works at Metro Transit, was a mechanic at the LRT maintenance shop.

His job, along with the other employees involved in the pain pill investigation, is to make sure the light rail cars are safe for passengers. Metro Transit officials told us they take these violations very seriously, because a potentially impaired mechanic is safety risk.

The manager who handed out the pills was demoted and received a 90-day suspension without pay and the mechanic who did the same was given an 18-month probationary warning.

Another manager at the facility was suspended for knowing about the drug violation and not reporting it.

Metro Transit says police did not conduct a criminal investigation into the illegal pill distribution, in part, because it was relatively small in scope and only affected a handful of employees.

The recommendation was to move forward with the administrative investigation and Metro Transit just recently wrapped up that probe and that is why the disciplinary action is now public information.